


june is the month of the sun

by kytaen



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, Bittersweet, Gen, Gift Fic, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 05:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15902052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kytaen/pseuds/kytaen
Summary: months pass by so quickly here.(it's june again—june, the month of the sun.  and as always, during this time, chiaki visits the sea.)





	june is the month of the sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshooter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshooter/gifts).



> guess who already had a oneshot ready, but then suddenly had a title pop up in her head and was like "shoot. i Must Write This Now Instead" (it's me)
> 
> anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHIE!! i hope your year is filled with magic & happiness and all things lovely! you're really an inspiration & you've taught me many things, so thank you (and apologies given as well, for making this angsty)
> 
> ((and sorry to any kaoruPs in the room... i'm not too familiar with his character so i might have kind of... winged it here ^^;;))

Chiaki puts on his robes, neatly tying the ribbon around his waist. With a gentle pluck, he takes a leaf from above him, and slides it into his auburn hair, completing his outfit.

"Where are you going?" Perched on the tree branch, Izumi eyes him warily, but it isn't without a sad shine.

Chiaki half-grins, half-grimaces. "Just where I always go, Sena."

"The usual, huh?" Without waiting for a response, Chiaki leaps down, swinging on a branch and landing on his tiptoes upon the leaf-mottled road.

He hears Izumi's reply echo at his back. "You don't give up, do you."

"That's not something I can do," Chiaki says to himself.  _Maybe I'm just scared._ And though he did not speak the last sentence out loud, maybe a part of him wanted Izumi to hear it.

It is autumn now, where Chiaki comes from. Red maples in bloom like the sakura trees in spring. Yellows and browns dotting the landscape, signaling the arrival of cool winds and the harvest.

It was summer when the two of them met, for the first time.

It was also summer, when they had parted.

Disappearing suddenly. There had been a meteor shower that day; Chiaki remembers their face that night, with the stars reflecting in their eyes like glittering moon shards, and then—

gone.

( _gone, gone, gone._ )

And then, years later, they had appeared once more in Chiaki's life.

_There was the sea,_  Chiaki calls up, from the deep deep recesses of his memory, as he picks off the crimson-red maple leaf from his head, and looks at it glow a warm orange against the sun's rays.  _There was the sea, when I saw him again._

A sparkle, seaglass-colored, catches his eye before him, and he looks up from the leaf in his hand.

There was the sea, and there still is the sea.

It's the only thing that hasn't changed from back then. The sea, the mother ocean, has never depleted its blue, blue hue. The golden sand still stretched for miles upon miles. The seagulls were still annoyingly claiming their bounty of scraps upon the shore.

It's summer here.

Chiaki fans himself in the hot June sun. Despite being linked to the sun itself, gods could not walk unscathed in the mortal world without feeling some of its effects. To imagine what humans went throu—

His hair is still the same blue Chiaki remembered.

Thoughts ripped aside, Chiaki starts sprinting, towards the lone figure on the sea of sand. He's surrounded by buckets full of sand and water. A castle, bumpy and misshapen, lies in the sandy bed before him.

There's a strip of seaweed, on his hair.

"Kanata."

Kanata looks up. Those intelligent eyes, they sparkled just like the ocean in the backdrop: they were beautiful, even more beautiful than the sea.

"Kanata, sorry for the wait! I'm back!"

Kanata squints his eyes against the wind, holding a hand up to block it. Only until the gust of wind stops does Kanata let his hand fall, back to being buried into the sand.

Chiaki looks down, noting Kanata's features. "Kanata, you've grown since the last time I saw you!"

Kanata's hands are deft: already, the towers of the castle look like towers. Patting his hands onto his shorts, Kanata stands up, taking a bucket with him. Though Chiaki knew he wouldn't block the way, he takes a step back still, watching Kanata dip his pail into the water, and hobble back.

"You... still love the sea, don't you, Kanata." Kanata puts the full bucket onto the sand floor with a  _thump_. "That makes me really glad, you know."

Kanata lifts up the pail, dousing the nearby sand.

"There's a lot I want to talk to you about, Kanata." Chiaki rubs at the back of his neck. "But actually... I have a lot of questions for you. You know—um, you  _knew_  that I was the type to ask a lot of questions, right? Ahaha, do you remember that time when—"

Silence, the waves, the gulls.

Chiaki sighs. "That's right, I should get to the point, shouldn't I? I've always been bad at doing that, so thank you for pointing it out, Kanata!" He takes a deep breath, and exhales.

"Kanata..."

The strip of seaweed falls off Kanata's head, blown by the wind.

"...were you punished? Exiled here?" Chiaki kneels down, so he can see Kanata's face better, those green eyes that glimmered like seaglass. "Or..."

Shooting stars were a funny thing sometimes. People hung their wishes upon them, their hope—sometimes that could be all they had—yet nothing ever came true for them. But Chiaki knew the truth about stars, and that was that stars shone the most when you least expect them to.

"Did you wish to become human, that night?"

Kanata's eyes are a blank, and his mouth stayed unmoving. Those eyes, they're looking down upon the soft sand, at the castle he's building.

"Was it too painful, being a god? It was the same for me, too. Because we were all isolated, you see." Chiaki lays a finger on a stick stuck in the sand, willing it to interact with him—it wobbles a bit from side to side, as if blown by the wind, then settles.

Chiaki sighs.

"But Kanata, guess what." Kanata shifts over to the left a bit; Chiaki re-orients himself so that he's looking back at Kanata's face. "I made a friend, haha! Though Sena is too preoccupied with his own troubles, I'd like for you to meet him someday."

 Kanata doesn't answer.

"You know, Kanata, he lost someone precious to him, too." Suddenly, the world blurs and obfuscates; the twinkling of salt spray glow like stars in the midday sun. "Ah, sorry Kanata, I really shouldn't be crying." Chiaki wipes his tears away with the sleeve of his robe, then slowly stands up, gaze still glued to where Kanata sits, and that stray hair that stands on top of his head. The warm summer breeze against his neck feels chilly, for some reason.

"I... have to go now," Chiaki starts, then adds, "—but I'll come back later to see you!"

Kanata looks up, and for a moment Chiaki is hopeful—but their eyes don't meet. There's the muffled sound of footsteps in the sand, and crashing waves, and seagulls, and a voice piercing the loud silence.

"Kanata-kun! What are you doing out here?"

Kanata stands up, brushing his hands free of sand grain. "Kaoru~"

The one named Kaoru passes through Chiaki's immaterial being, jogging straight to where Kanata is. His cheeks are red from exertion. "Kanata-kun... only you can make me run this hard. Ughh... my legs..."

"Why not drink some water from the sea, to 'soothe' your throat, Kaoru?"

Kaoru huffs. "Are you trying to give me salt poisoning? You know that seawater isn't drinkable. Hey, Kanata-kun. You're wet, aren't you?"

Chiaki does a double-take—Kanata is indeed wet around the edges.

Kanata smiles. "I am 'wet', and 'dripping',  _puka, puka~_ "

"Did you try to swim again? Didn't I tell you not to? You could drown, Kanata-kun!"

_You... can't swim anymore?_

_You used to be one with the water, you know._

"Ehehe~ Kaoru is 'angry'. You usually do not get so 'worked up' unless you spot a girl, you know."

"That's only because you get into trouble all the time," Kaoru sniffs. "It seems like I can't leave you alone without getting worried."

_I shouldn't have left you alone, ever, Kanata._  Chiaki watches the rest of the conversation without hearing a single thing.  _I should have stayed by your side more. You... were feeling lonely, weren't you._

_I'm sorry._

"Maybe you didn't want to be a lonely god anymore... you were tired of being worshipped. Was that it, Kanata?"

Kanata laughs, a soft bubbling noise, but it isn't towards him.

"Please answer me," though Chiaki knows it's futile. "I can't do anything for you if I don't know."

"—alright, come on Kanata-kun, let's head back. It's going to rain soon." Kaoru's voice cuts into the dead silence, and the world and its colors and sounds rush back to Chiaki's head like blood to numb veins.  _That's right, my time is up._  Chiaki looks over Kaoru, one more time.

_Kanata is precious to you too, isn't he, Kaoru? If so, please protect him. I... can't do that for him, anymore, so I can only ask of you this favor. Please._

Chiaki presses his fingers against his mouth, then places it gently onto Kanata's forehead. "I'm giving you my blessing," Chiaki says—almost reciting it, like a mantra, given how many times he's done this before. "I love you... Kanata. Please stay safe." The words  _I'll see you later_ dies on his lips, blown away by the wind, washed away by the waves. He swallows. "I'll see you when you're all grown up. I'm sure you'll grow up splendidly—if it's you, I'm sure of it."

Kanata nods, but it's to Kaoru's words, of  _let's go home._

Chiaki smiles. It was tinged with the tiniest bit of sadness, but overall, it was a happy smile, he thinks. Because Kanata was smiling so much in the human world, and it's a smile Chiaki would have died for, if gods could, to see back then.

He turns, and walks back towards the invisible barrier that separates them, back towards his own realm, where the autumn leaves grew beautifully upon the trees.

"Chiaki."

Chiaki freezes.

Kaoru's voice is of confusion. "Hm?"

"Just now, there was a 'leaf' in your hair, Kaoru."

Heart drumming against his ribs, Chiaki turns back slowly.

"What about it."

"It was 'red'. A red maple leaf." Kanata pauses (Chiaki's heart must have stopped with that pause, too. Like time had stopped altogether and froze the both of them). "Someone once told me that even if the ocean waters 'dried up' one day, the sun will still 'continue' to shine, like how autumn will always 'come back' after summer." Kanata smiles. " _Chiaki_ — a thousand autumns, forever."

"Well," Kaoru lets out a breath, "it certainly wasn't me. And aren't maple leaves supposed to be green in the summer?"

Kanata only laughs at this response. And when Kaoru starts walking forward, Kanata kept up his pace, in stride.

And when the two became nothing but specks in the distance, all there was left was the sea.

Chiaki blinks himself awake. Takes a step forward, too, and smiles to the ground.

(The summer wind ceases, just for a moment, to let the sun shine.)

**Author's Note:**

> Chiaki (千秋) means "a thousand autumns". Other definitions include "generation after generation", "centuries" and "forever".
> 
> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/kytaen) ⋆ [twitter](https://twitter.com/kytaens)


End file.
